The Minister of Industry and Trade on April 3 issued Circular 05/2018/TT-BCT on goods origin ("Circular 05").

Question: What are the regulations on the determination of goods origin and guidance on declaring certificates of origin (C/O), supplementary declaration for C/O and certificates of non-manipulation (CNM)?

Rules of preferential goods origin

Under Circular 05, the general rule for determining the goods origin is based on the origin of the goods in a country, a group of countries, or any territories where the final production process substantially alters the goods.

This Circular prescribes the rules of preferential goods origin as follows:

- For exports and imports, eligible for tariff and non-tariff preferences, rules of preferential origin must be implemented in accordance with the International Treaties Vietnam has signed or acceded to and are in line with the regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Trade guiding the implementation of the International Treaties.

- For exports eligible for general tariff preferences and other unilateral preferences, rules of preferential origin must be implemented in accordance with the importing country's regulations governing these preferences and are in line with the regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Trade guiding the implementation of the rules of origin.

Rules of non-preferential goods origin

Circular 05 also regulates rules of non-preferential goods origin as follows: Exports and imports are considered to have purely originated or been wholly produced in a country, a group of countries or territories if they satisfy Article 7 of Decree No. 31/2018/ND-CP.

Exports and imports are not considered to have purely originated or been wholly produced in a country, a group of countries, or territories if they meet the criteria of origin in the List of Product-Specific Rules contained in Appendix I that is issued in attachment to Circular 05. In particular, the List of Product-Specific Rules has been developed based on the Harmonized System of 2017 version.

In the event of any discrepancy between the description in this Appendix and the one in the instrument of the Harmonized System developed by the World Customs Organization, the latter will take precedence. Non-preferential goods origin criteria are determined based on the "Change of Tariff Classification" (CTC) and "Local Value Content" (LVC). Specific guidance on the declaration of C/O, supplementary C/O and CNM forms Circular 05 also promulgates the declaration forms in the Appendix, stipulating the application of forms for every single case and providing detailed guidelines on conducting the declaration to enable traders to make C/O, supplementary C/O and CNM declarations.